For individuals interested in
knowledge for certification in VCP (VMware Certified Professional) and DCV
(Data Center Virtualization), this tutorial will give you a clear, hands-on
approach to achieving your goals.

Please be aware to pursue a
certification as a VCP, VMware requires you to take an online or physical class
with an official authorised agent, a list of which can be found on the VMware
website.

Virtual Machines

Imagine being beamed into the
world of virtual reality, where you can experience multiple content and signals
on a large scale from your living room as if you were present at the scene,
just by wearing some advanced goggles fitted with sensors. Impossible once upon
a time, right?

Now think about your old
computer with the usual components such as ROM, BIOS, CMOS, drivers and
peripherals such as mouse, keyboard, USB and monitor that need to be present
for a successful boot into an operating system.

What if a hardware can be
tricked by software to believe all these parameters are present to create the
perfect illusion of a traditional environment? That’s what Hypervisors are.

Hypervisors

Hypervisors are a type of
system normally in software capable of emulating resources to enable successful
booting of operating systems such as Windows or Linux. As far as the operating
system is concerned, the components required for it to function are present
such as processors, RAM, keyboards etc.

Types
of Hypervisors

There are generally two types
namely Bare-Metal Hypervisors, where a hardware computer has the
hypervisor installed and is hosting two or more operating systems running as
guest virtual machines. An example of a Type 1 hypervisor is VMware ESXi
installed on a host machine.

Type 2 hypervisors are where
the computer is already running an operating system such as Windows, Linux or
MAC OS. You can run virtualized operating system environments using software
such as VMware workstation, Fusion, Oracle’s Virtual Box and GNS3 for emulating
network environments.

Carrying out this important
task comes with some advantages, such as downloading Workstation and ESXi
software, getting access to software licenses, joining a community of experts
and also accessing information on training and exams for certification as VCP
and DCV.

The current version of
Workstation is 12 but installing earlier versions, like 10, will be adequate
for this task. Remember this is a demonstration of a Type-2 Hypervisor so an
operating system would have already been running on a host before the
hypervisor is installed. Think of it like an onion inside another onion when we
install additional operating systems in the hypervisor VMware Workstation.

Once downloaded, place the
file in a location on your computer and fire up VMware Workstation.

At
the top left corner, click File and select New Virtual Machine to display the set-up
wizard above.

Select
Typical Installation and click Next to continue the set up with the screen
displayed below.

Here, you’ll be presented with a few installation options such as
Installing from a Disc, installing from an .iso file or you can even choose to
install the operating system later. Since we already have an .iso file we
downloaded earlier, select (.iso) and browse to the location of your file.
Click Next to proceed.

At
this stage, you get to name your virtual machine and you may change the
location where the installation files are stored on your host machine.

Choose
an appropriate name, so it is easy to identify if you intend to install many
virtual machines in the future. Click next to proceed with the installation.

By
default, 20GB of HDD space from your host machine is allocated to create your
new virtual machine.

You
are presented with the option to store your virtual disk as a single file or
split it into multiple files.

The
idea for choosing the split disk option is that some operating systems have
maximum file size limits such as 2GB limit for Fat32 file types, having a split
disk will ensure the machine can write excess files onto the multiple disks
instead of being limited to one single virtual disk.

Using
a configuration process known as Thin Provisioning ensures not all of the 20GB
is used up at once. For example, if only 4GB is required, it releases the space
to be used by other OS that require it.

You
can now check the settings of your virtual machine and customize the hardware
by changing the amount of HDD, RAM and networking options if required. Click
finish to power on your virtual machine.

The
virtual machine is now ready to boot and you will be presented with a few
options to run your operating system. For the purposes of this task, select
Install Android – x86 to hard disk and hit Enter.

Remember
to switch control from host machine to virtual machine, hold down Ctrl + Alt
and click in the virtual machine workspace to use your keyboard and mouse to
send inputs.

1 On the first step, you
get to create/modify partitions

2 Create a primary
partition using all of the 20GB allocated space.

3Select New to create new partition from
free space.

4
Select Write to partition table. Prompt data will be destroyed, which is fine.

5 Once
the Write operation is complete, you can select the partition to install
Android OS.

10 Wait
for a moment while the Android operating system files install.

11
If
the set-up configuration goes to plan, you should see this screen signifying
your install has been successful.

This concludes the
installation of Android OS in VMware workstation as a Type-2 hypervisor. You
should now be able to see the Android virtual machine on the left pane of your
application, where you have the option to tweak any settings you want for your
new machine. Booted interface should look like the image below.

Test the functionality by launching
the browser and accessing your favourite websites.

Similarly, if you decide to
pursue any certification in the direction of VCP (VMware Certified
Professional) and DCV (Data Center Virtualization), you are required to take an
online or physical class from an authorised agent. Please visit the website for
more information.

Typically, a training course
in VMware vSphere: Install, Configure and Management will cost about £3,192.00
with the vSphere Foundations Exam Number: 2V0-620 costing about £276.00

You are welcome to join us as
we delve even deeper into more advanced configurations of VMware to help
sharpen your skills as you prepare for your exams or career as an engineer.

As always, don’t forget to
teach your fingers by practice, practice and more practice!